Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Standard Chartered AGM

The Bank held it's 2006 AGM at KICC today.

Prox-crushThe line for proxies was longer, and served slower, than that of shareholders causing me to miss half the meeting. In fact, I was turned away when my name was not on the proxy list. As I walked away I remembered something and went to another attendant who found my name on his list - it appears different officers had different lists of proxies!

New chairmanToday marked the retirement of Hannington Awori as Chairman and long serving director of the Bank. He was replaced by Mr. David Njoroge the, well regarded, former auditor general of Kenya. (Wrongly listed at government site as still current)

Shareholder questionsThey were not many questions as two shareholders who feature at most AGM’s, and recently at the Nation’s, took up quite a bit of time with endless comments and praise for the Chairman and performance the Bank.

Others: - Why no women directors?- Can we have bonus share to mark Chairman's retirement?- Why doesn’t bank tailor personal loans for retirees, not just employed people?- Why no provision for a 250 million shilling judgement the Bank lost in the courts?

Hot button issueThe Bank’s CEO had earlier concluded his long speech on the Bank’s year with a video featuring blind runner Henry Wanyoike, a world paralympics champion - which has now being converted into an advertisement (with a Kenyan theme) that the Bank is showing in 54 countries as a model of partnership.

There had also been mention of the corporate social responsibility activites of the bank through support of projects totalling 40 million shillings to various community partnerships during the year such as a new 6.5 million shilling bus for the Thika School for the Blind.

Some shareholders were upset about this and, during question time, wanted to know why the bank was spending their money on programs instead of more dividends. Another asked for the bank board to present a budget for such activities before embarking on them without consulting shareholders first. As others lined up for lunch they questioned if 40m was actually spent on projects (Kenyans mistrust and believe there is corruption beneath even good ventures).

GoodiesHanded out after the meeting was a tote bag with t-shirt and lunch box from inter-continental hotel (sprite can, burger, samosas, apple, drumstick, spring roll). And in a few weeks, a 3.1 shilling per share dividend.

Thanx for the report. KQ's presentation seems to have gone well but was INVITATION only.

There should be a structured method to addressing questions. In some US AGMs the questions are in WRITTEN format to discourage grandstanding by shareholders who ask inane questions often not related to the Annual Report.

I forgot to mention that during the BAT AGM some shareholders were looking for jobs for their kith & kin!

Public companies are not supposed to be run on nepotistic lines. A shareholder was rebuked at the BOC EGM for insinuating that tribalism was rife at BOC!

Thanx for giving us the summary on the SCBK AGM. Please go for many more!

VituVingi, remembered you mentioning somethin on your site about Wananchi online doing private placement for their shares. I have a huge refund check from kengen and would like to invest it somewhere, and especially if they are considering an IPO. How do i go about finding out more info on this placement? does it go thru investment banks ama we contact wanachi direct? .I envy you guys, i have shares but i cant even tell whether my dividends are being credited to my account with the brokers or not, but i will be home in August so i will definitely follow up and make sure i reap where i sowed. Good madaraka day peeps !!

@ mashatallwith some brokers like Dyer& Blair, Francis Drummond you can get to see your CDS account statement online. not exactly up to date but it gives you an idea and when you are not at home (and am not) its a relief to know how much you are earning/losing.

@bankelelethanks for letting us be able to discuss (chat) on your blog

I'll take another imension on this debate, if you saw StaChart advert on the Nation(31st May 2006) it aroused some memories of the fierce campaign rivarly like once seen btw Safcom and Kencell.Tjhe StanChart advert asks Kenyan, "Why settle for a bouquet when we can offer you a garden"A collegue of mine added, "I would rather get a garden that I will tender day and day out than a bouquet that will wither the next morning"I Aden listening? Hope he is

VItuVingiSana: KQ was INVITATION only, though they sometimes have the powerpoint's on their website after (EABL also)

Also Total ('05) had the written question format, which worked very well and it cut out the grandstanding speeches by shareholders - and MD Nguer tried to answer every written question, unless it was a duplicate.

Also there is a new breed of shareholder who thinks companyies are run like co-operative societites e.g. the StanChart shareholders who wanted to approve the Bank's CSR budget - SACCO's typically present next years budget at each AGM.

mashatall: Wananchi private placement may still be on-going (there was a write up in the business papers about 2 weeks ago)

Anonymous: My broker has no online access, but they will e-mail me a PDF statment (their's not CDS) at my request.

BizKenya: It's rare to see comparative advertising at the blue-chip level in recent times - and Stanchart definetly took a swipe at Barclays.

Yeah, a timely warning to those who champion speculation as an investment strategy. Another reminder: Before you invest, always look at what you, as a shareholder, is likely to salvage were a company to go under. If the share price is higher than that "leftover", be careful. Finally, be wary of any company where Chris Kirubi or Naushad Merali is a major shareholder or have shown interest. Poor Uchumi!!

@anonymousWhat Dyer and blair offer is a nominee account, not really CDS account, and the shares are held under their nominee limited.Guess it gives them more control over your shares, and i would shudder to think that they may be trading with the shares without you ever knowing what is going on. The CMA as a regulator is a lame duck, see what happened to Uchumi? apparently some people who had inside info were able to offload theis shares before it went down.Looked at eveready books on sameer website, am not touching the shares whether they sell at 2 kshs or even if they offer them for free, the company is going down the tubes unless something drastic happens. Both chris and Merali are simply bailing out of a sinking ship!!!

bankelele: i remember looking at your 'stable' recently and uchumi was in there. i too had a small holding in uchumi. should we not consider a class action suit against pwc, chris kirubi ???? Am very distraught

banks: I wonder if there is a company that allows the shareholders to vote to allocate CSR monies to charities or projects of their choice. The owners need to decide where how they spend their instead of leaving that to the management. They could easily vote to allocate it to their alma mater or better still to further their political ambitions.

re: Eveready. I'm reminded that the two gentlemen who were at some point or other associated with poor Uchumi are associated with the said compamy and will be offloading their shares. The key question is whether they will offload shares to a level that the Energizer licensor will pull out. Remember Firestone (now Yana)??? If the licensor goes, my take is that quality control checks will do too.

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